


Reunion

by sweetautumnwine



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Amnesia, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Heartache, Lucretia - my love and my darling, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 18:51:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16645817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetautumnwine/pseuds/sweetautumnwine
Summary: Lucretia's reunion with the boys who can't remember.





	Reunion

There was an ache. She’d subdued it in the beginning, suppressing it beneath assertions of goodwill and necessity, but as the years passed, drawing thin the cord which bound her to her friends, that ache grew, gnawing at her core, until each morning she lay staring at the ceiling, wondering who would be the first to die.

 

Lucretia had watched over them all to the best of her ability, but she was only human—so _painfully_ human—and even she could not track those who wished to remain lost. They were specters, the crew of the Starblaster, settling into the soil of a planet they mistakenly called home.

 

The guilt often threatened to drag Lucretia down, through the floor of the moon base, plummeting to the unforgiving, unfamiliar ground below. Some days, when the weight of her choices made it hard to breathe, she wished it would.

 

Like impossible stars colliding without exploding, those three foolish boys came together, unaware of the coincidence. Lucretia nearly laughed when she saw this, hardly noticed the tears. In a world so vast and miraculous as this one, they had found each other again, in spite of it all.

 

When she heard their names, she nearly faltered. For so long, she alone had born the weight of their identities, tucked away in the darkest reaches of her mind, where no one would ever find them. But their resurgence sparked something anew. Lucretia wouldn’t dare name it _hope_. Whatever it was, it burned like a long-forgotten light, shifting the shadows, clearing away the dust.

 

She couldn’t have prepared better for their arrival. Learning of their proximity to the gauntlet, Lucretia worried herself to the brink of illness, grew feverish in the night and paced paths across the dais. Davenport—kind and hollow Davenport, a man she could scarcely look at anymore, for she had stripped him of so, so much—attended to her, bringing her water and the comfort of his presence. Still, she dismissed him. His kindness could not heal.

 

And then, they survived. Lucretia wept as long as she was able, reminded of her youth, those decades spent in futility, and she felt young and weak. Everything she had done, all that she had built and fought to protect, had developed fissures; alone, she couldn’t complete her task. In her moon base, high above the surface, looking down, Lucretia was a spectator. There was only so much she could do.

 

She readied herself, prayed her racing heart wouldn’t betray her. The years she’d spent alone had not yet made her immovable, but she perched upon the throne, unwilling to trust her legs against the relentless forces of shock and nostalgia, and cast one heavenward gaze up to the dome’s apex. Her eyes burned with unshed tears, and she tightened her grip on her white oak staff, steadying herself against a future she failed to anticipate.

 

They entered, and the lack of recognition in their expressions was almost enough for her heart to break. But they were there, whole and healthy, as spirited as they’d been all those years they’d traveled together. She smiled to keep the ache away and greeted them as strangers.

 

“ _Welcome, the three of you, to the Bureau of Balance._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> I only managed to find (and fall in love with) The Adventure Zone a few months ago, and while I wish I would have gotten into it sooner, I'm so pleased with how it's changed my life!  
> This is the first piece I've written for this podcast. I focused on Lucretia because I found her to be 1) relatable 2) complex and 3) tragic. I adore her. I hope to write more for TAZ in the future!


End file.
